Rhizobia are soil bacteria. These are capable of 'nodulating' leguminous' plants. Examples of these are beans and alfalfa. This soil bacteria lives in the roots of these plants. This bacteria turns atomospheric nitrogen into ammonia. This reduces the need for nitrogen fertilizer. Commercial fertilizer is created from fossil fuels that aren't renewable. Biotechnology was deemed as being a potential means of optimizing natural processes by which plants are able to receive their required nitrogen. If Rhozobia could be improved, it was believed that this could save U.S farmers potentially billions of dollars in production costs. Plasmids are genes that govern the nodulation nitrogen fixation that are often located on extrachromosal DNA modules. Those Rhozobia in beans in North Dakota appear to be quite diverse in their plasmid content. However, no dominate strain was identified. In a study in North Dakota, based upon DNA-DNA hybridization data, all isolates except for one, have a single Sym plasmid, nitrogen-fixing genes which may be chromosomal in strain ND610. Due to there being no dominant competitive strain of native rhozobia. This makes the prospects of a beneficial inoculation by a commercial of rhozobia seem favorable.